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"Covering the Liberal Waterfront-Reflections on a One-Party State" interview with Stephen LeDrew Stephen LeDrew is president of the Liberal Party of Canada, which was in government for 69 years in the last century and appears to be forging another dynasty in the new one. Is Canada in danger of becoming a one-party state, and is that a good thing even for the Liberals? In the run-up to November's Liberal convention, will the race be competitive or a coronation of Paul Martin? What about campaign finance reform? The outspoken LeDrew has called Jean Chrétien's plan to ban corporate and union donations "dumb as a bag of hammers." In his Toronto law office, LeDrew met with L. Ian MacDonald, editor of Policy Options, for a conversation that covered the Liberal waterfront. "'Pragmatic Radicalism': A Vision of Hope on the Left" by Pierre Ducasse On January 25, the New Democrats met in Toronto to elect a new leader. Six candidates were in the running and Jack Layton easily won on the first ballot. But it was Pierre Ducasse who brought the delegates to their feet with a brilliant speech that defined a vision of renewal on the left. We re-produce it as delivered, in both English and French. "A Case for Bank Mergers: Keeping Canada Competitive in a Global Financial Services Industry" by E. Leo Kolber The chairman of the Senate Banking Committee reflects on intensive hearings in which advocates and opponents of large bank mergers in Canada made strong arguments on both sides of the overriding question of the public interest. Merger proponents argue that economies of scale and critical mass are needed for Canada to remain competitive in a global industry, while small business is concerned about the availability of credit, and consumer advocates have pertinent questions about the quality of service. Senator Kolber and his committee reached a bipartisan and unanimous recommendation in favour of mergers, provided they are approved by the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, and the Competition Bureau. "Can Consumers Bank on Mergers?" by Robert R. Kerton Canada's large banks are again enchanted by a siren song of mergers that could see the good ship of Canadian banking founder on the rocks, suggests economist Robert Kerton, dean of arts at University of Waterloo and an authority on banking and consumer issues. The big banks may have already captured many of the economies of scale they would purportedly gain from mergers, but would do well to improve their service if they really aspire to be world-competitive. He enumerates five issues, including concentration of power, which proposed mergers should have to deal with, in the public interest—reason enough to retain parliamentary oversight. "Canada Needs a Clear and Timely Merger Review Process" by Gordon M. Nixon The president of Canada's largest financial institution, RBC Financial Group, asserts that a clear, transparent and predictable process is needed before any bank merger proposals are likely to be submitted to Ottawa for regulatory and political approval. The public interest, he maintains, requires a degree of clarity and predictability that are clouded by the uncertainty of political oversight. That said, Gordon Nixon suggests mergers be examined in terms of their long-term impact on Canada's future prosperity and standard of living as well as Canada's economic sovereignty. He maintains that Canada's big banks are not big enough, in terms of market capitalization or even assets, to be world-competitive in a globalized industry. "Size Matters Doesn't Mean Size Works" by Ted Neave and Mihkel M. Tombak In this cost-benefit analysis, two professors at Queen's University outline the principal reasons behind financial industry mergers, as well as the main challenges that mergers create for both management and regulators. Merger advocates argue that size matters in terms of achieving both critical mass and economies of scale. But there are equal challenges of managing merged financial services organizations, notably in systems integration and cross-selling across the new merged entity. Many mergers in the United States have resulted in a serious loss of shareholder value, while the Dutch experience in the European Union saw increased service costs to customers. As the merger debate is resumed in Ottawa, the most relevant issue is one of net benefits to Canada, as well as to the banks, from the costs of regulatory supervision down to the costs of ATMs and other banking services. "Big is Good, Big Works" by James McIntosh Mergers can be beneficial, even when reduced competition leads to higher prices, provided higher profits of widely held bank stocks, particularly in mutual and pension funds, offset their losses in services. But efficiencies in scale resulting from mergers may also lead to lower product prices, benefiting all market participants, consumers and producers alike. According to the author's research based on three merger models, the price of banking service falls while their availability rises, amid higher profits. Being big has other advantages, he concludes, notably larger scale in banks' home market as a platform to successful foreign operations. "Les fusions bancaires : dans l'intérêt de qui ?" by Catherine Swift and Brien Gray favor an interventionist approach by government. In order to minimize the negative impact on the Canadian economy, it would be better to use a system of emission permits exchange with the possibility to buy permits on the world market. For small and medium sized businesses, the merger model currently being discussed is no more acceptable than the one examined in 1998. The dynamism of small businesses, generating about half of the total economic activity and employment, is vital to the country's economic performance. This dynamism could be hampered by the mergers. The availability of funding is already one of the major obstacles confronting small businesses, and the most recent data show that their concern on this issue has reached an unprecedented level. To ensure that small businesses obtain adequate service over the long term, the competitiveness of banks must be increased before mergers are even considered. "Addressing the Social Determinants of Health in Canada: Bridging the Gap Between Research Findings and Public Policy" by Dennis Raphael In spite of an accumulated body of evidence and Canada's own expertise on the topic, there is currently a policy vacuum on social determinants of health, as the costs and delivery of health care services have come to dominate the public debate. Whereas Canada was a leader in the 1970s and 1980s, it has now fallen behind countries such as the United Kingdom, Finland and Sweden. If we continue to ignore these broader policy issues, promoting healthy lifestyles and increasing spending on medical care are unlikely to succeed in maintaining and improving the health of Canadians. Establishing a social determinants of health task force to consider the findings and implement their implications would be a valuable first step in this direction. "Nouvelles perspectives sur la santé des Montréalais : une action commune pour réduire les inégalités" by Richard Lessard Although Montreal's economic situation has improved over the past few years and certain indicators of the population's health and well-being have changed for the better, the city continues to have the worst health record of all Canada's major urban areas. Moreover, the data indicates that there are significant disparities according to income and district. Only with concerted action by all the actors involved and full citizen participation will it be possible to reduce the inequalities necessary to close the gap. "Food Security: More Than a Determinant of Health" by Lynn McIntyre In Canada hunger became a subject of investigation in the 1980s, when food banks began to emerge and children's feeding programs in schools became more common. Even though nutritional adequacy can be regarded as the single most important determinant of health, Canada's response to food insecurity has remained community-based, ad hoc and largely focused on the provision of free or subsidized food. Since fluidity in the number of hungry families has coincided with employment dislocations and decreased access to social assistance and employment insurance, addressing the problem will require an increase in real incomes, whether through minimum wage or social assistance. Protecting the affordability of healthy foods, particularly food staples such as milk, and creating a hunger and food insecurity monitoring system to determine progress, deterioration or shifts among those affected would also help to improve the situation. "The Current State of Housing in Canada as a Social Determinant of Health" by Toba Bryant Despite growing evidence as to their effect upon health outcomes, housing issues have not been high on the agenda of most health researchers in Canada and the federal government and many provincial governments have withdrawn from the provision of social housing over the last decade. Despite the housing agreements signed in November 2001 by the federal and provincial governments to build more social housing units, less than 200 new units have been built since then, if we exclude Quebec. To end the current housing crisis and insecurity, governments have to increase their spending on housing by 1 per cent of overall spending and adopt a national housing strategy that recognizes that housing affects the population's health and other social determinants of health. Book Excerpt: La société efficiente by Joseph Heath We produce here an excerpt from chapter 9 of the French version of Joseph Heath's The Efficient Society. First published in English in 2001, the work provides a critical, instructive and often amusing look at the role of the market and the State in improving our individual and collective well-being. The excerpt presents in clear and simple terms the inefficiencies that social inequalities and the struggle against these inequalities can engender. Read within the context of bank mergers and the social determinants of health, our two thematics this month, his analysis reminds us that the solutions to economic and social problems are never easy to define. Book Review: Marcel Côté reviews La société efficiente by Joseph Heath and Well Being and Globalization by John Helliwell [summary not available] Book Review: David Clarke reviews Cyber-Diplomacy: Managing Foreign Policy in the Twenty-First Century edited by Evan H. Potter [summary not available] "Kyoto: A Parliamentary View" by Charles Caccia [summary not available] "Carnet de voyage d'un Anglo-Québécois en France : vous avez dit anglicisation ?" [summary not available] |
